Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson (10 page)

“How did she contract the virus in the first
place?”

Kirk looked at Julie.

It took several seconds before she opened her
mouth. “The free clinic.”

He nodded like an encouraging teacher whose
student had found the right answer.

“I just went there to get some antibiotics,
you know? They took a blood test and then they gave me a shot, and
I woke up in a hospital, only …”

Her eyebrows dipped low, and worry dug lines
in her forehead.

“Only what?” I prompted.

She focused on the grimy floor, her hands
clasped.

“It wasn’t a hospital. It was some kind of …
warehouse. On an island.”

“Plum Island,” Kirk said.

I knew Plum Island, AKA
Plum Island Animal
Disease Center
, off the coasts of Long Island and Connecticut.
There were actually several facilities on the island, and there had
been rumors for decades it was a front for US biological weapons
research.

“What happened there, Julie?”

“I don’t know.”

I studied her, the way her fingers fidgeted,
the flush to her skin, and I had to wonder if she couldn’t remember
or just didn’t want to.

“You must know something. How did you wind up
at the mansion?”

“I got up out of bed … and … and … there were
doctors and nurses …”

“Only,” Kirk filled in, “the nurses and
doctors were dead.”

Julie’s face crumpled. “They were beat up and
shot. Murdered.”

“No crying.” Kirk ordered.

She looked to the ceiling and fluttered her
eyes, trying to drive back tears.

Kirk continued. “It might have looked like
that to you, skin purple with bruising, blood everywhere.”

Julie nodded.

“They were infected by the virus. They got
sick, crashed and bled out within hours.”

I almost choked. “That fast?”

A chill moved through me, chasing the heat. I
was somewhat familiar with the symptoms of Ebola. The red eyes, the
way the virus replicated and ate away at a person’s body until
nothing was left but a bloody soup of more and more virus. But
hours?

“I thought it took days.”

“Not this particular strain. It had some
help. A little genetic tinkering.”

I let the new snip of information sink
in.

“So I’m sick?” Julie said. She hiccupped a
little.

“You’re not sick, but you can kill
others.”

“Typhoid Mary,” I said.

“Exactly. Your body is a factory for a
powerful biological weapon, a virus that couldn’t be produced
without killing its host … until now.”

Julie slumped against the stall wall. She
looked stunned, almost catatonic. But to her credit, she didn’t
cry.

I had to report this to Jacob, only I was
afraid what he’d say. It was probably a tossup; finish the op by
delivering her to the government, or destroy her.

What the hell was I going to do?

I now understood why the defense department
was concerned about Julie. If she was a living, breathing, hot zone
capable of killing people within a few hours, every government and
terrorist group on the planet would want her. She’d be worth
billions.

Because she could kill billions.

Kirk cocked his head to the side and looked
at me as if he’d just finished discussing a Broadway play or a film
he’d seen at the local multiplex.

“So, where are we off to now?”

“We?”

I struggled to shut away the voice in the
back of my mind that was screaming
Ebola, Ebola, holy shit,
Ebola,
and focus on my surroundings.

If possible, the smells of mildew and urine
had gotten worse, mixing with the scent of stress emanating from
the three of us. One of the faucets dripped, and somewhere in the
walls I heard a clunk in the pipes.

Something inside me shifted, as if I could
physically feel myself locking away the shock and fitting back into
my skin.

“Morrissey has a personal car. I can take you
to it.” Kirk raised his brows, trying to sell the suggestion.

I answered with an emotionless frown.
“Actually, this is where we part ways.”

He didn’t seem surprised. He answered with a
sideways sort of smile, of all things.

“You made me run all this way on a bum leg
just to kill me?”

“Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Do I get a last request?”

“Depends. What is it?”

“Kiss me.”

I hadn’t seen that one coming. Facing death,
and still flirting. Had to hand it to him.

“Seriously?”

“Ever since I laid eyes on you, I’ve thought
about kissing you. Could I ask, out of professional courtesy, for
one kiss before you kill me?”

A kiss. After handing Julie off to him at
Columbus Circle, that’s precisely the path my thoughts had taken. A
kiss. Hot sex. That seemed like forever ago.

Now I was bodyguard to a biological weapon,
and I had to single-handedly keep her away from Iranians and South
Americans who wanted to use her blood to wipe out their
enemies.

“How about it, Chandler?”

I blinked, bringing my thoughts back to Kirk,
an idea starting to form.

“How much did they pay you?” I asked. “The
Russians?”

“Fifty grand. Twenty-five up front. If I
don’t deliver, I have to return it.”

Killing him was no doubt the safer move, but
I didn’t kill unless I had a very good reason for it. So far, Kirk
appeared to have been upfront about everything.

Besides, I could use some help.

“Tell you what. You return the money, come
back to working for us, and Uncle Sam will give you sixty.”

Kirk smiled, full out this time. “I like that
deal.”

“Of course you do.”

“You think you can trust me?”

“I think you’re a whore for the money. You’ll
serve whoever’s paying you.”

“True. So what about the kiss?”

Cocky bastard. “If we get out of this alive,
I’ll give you more than a kiss.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Now where’s Morrissey’s car?” I remembered
what Jacob had told me about the murdered spy. “Staten Island?”

He nodded. “The St. George ferry terminal.
Just need to take the number one train to the ferry.”

I hiked up my jeans, slipped the small blade
from my ankle sheath, and used it to cut the zip tie on his
wrists.

“Give me your jacket.”

“Undressing me? You rethought that whole
waiting-to-see-if-we-lived thing?”

“You’re not that cute.”

“Sure I am.”

Yeah. He was. But I was the one with the gun.
I pointed it.

He handed me the garment.

I tore off a sleeve and hiked up his
blood-soaked pant leg. I was right, the bullet hadn’t hit bone. In
fact, the wound looked more like a deep cut than a gunshot. Still,
flesh wounds, as they call them in the movies, were not something
to scoff at. They hurt like hell, could render a muscle
ineffective, and caused significant blood loss.

“Julie, can you … um … step back a bit?”

She nodded, putting both hands over her mouth
as if her very breath was infectious. The dazed expression in her
eyes was different than the drug buzz. She looked to be in
shock.

I used the jacket sleeve to wrap Kirk’s leg
and slow the bleeding. Ebola or not, this was a mission like any
other. My life was in danger. Other lives were in danger.

Anyone who got in my way was in the most
danger of all.

“
Killing is part of your job,” The
Instructor said. “You must know when to do it and be able to follow
through without hesitation.”

The creak of the bathroom door hinges dumped
another dose of adrenaline into my bloodstream. I peered through
the space between the stall walls and door and spotted a flustered
looking man carrying a briefcase. Judging from the way he moved and
his obliviousness to his surroundings, I pegged him to be just what
he seemed, a guy who needed to pee.

He sidled up to one of the urinals, just
about to open his fly.

I held the Ruger against my leg where he
wouldn’t be likely to spot it, but yet it would be ready in case I
was mistaken, and opened the door.

Kirk limped out of the stall behind me,
followed by Julie.

The guy’s eyebrows jutted upward, then an
attaboy
smile spread over his lips.

I caught a low chuckle coming from Kirk.

Boys.

We moved to the door. I inched it open,
checking the area outside before emerging. I remembered red dots on
the signs marking the platform and wound back to it. Sure enough,
the number one was among the train lines posted.

Now we just needed the train to make its
appearance before the Iranians did.

I focused on our surroundings. Exhaust hung
in the air like thick fog, along with the usual mix of body odor
and too much perfume. Still, compared to the smells in the
bathroom, the air was positively fresh.

Tiled floors and walls bounced the clack of
footfalls and rumble of voices until they meshed into a general
roar, each sound almost indistinguishable from the other. A brass
quartet played
New York, New York
further down on the
platform. And finally, getting closer, I detected the low roar of
an approaching train.

I almost didn’t hear the voice.

Farsi.

I turned toward the sound, scanning the
crowd. One of the men from the SUV raced down the steps toward us,
a cell phone in his left hand, his right tucked under his sport
coat, most likely concealing a weapon. His eyes were trained on
Julie and Kirk.

The rumble grew louder. People shifted on the
platform, positioning themselves for closest access to the doors
once the train arrived.

I eyed Kirk. His leg injury would slow him
down, but he could still help me. I could no longer afford to sit
on the fence. I either had to trust him or not.

I slipped out the pistol and handed it to
him. Then I drew my knife from its sheath and opened the serrated,
black blade.

“Get her on the train. You cross me, I’ll
find you.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

I stepped to the side. The crowd closed in
around Julie and Kirk, filling the spot I’d vacated.

Avoiding or heading off a dangerous situation
was always preferable to dealing with a threat once it arrived. As
an operative, much of my training focused on being aware of
everything around me. Not just sight, but sounds and smells and
attention to subliminal clues—what most people liked to think of as
hunches or intuition. Awareness prevented surprises. It also staved
off the sin of tunnel vision.

My Persian friend might be very good with
whatever weapon he held under his jacket, but when it came to being
aware, his training was lacking.

I circled to the right, moving purposefully
but slowly enough not to gain notice. Reaching the benches lining
the wall at the back of the platform, I wound through the crowd,
keeping watch on the back of my target’s head, moving closer.

My hair clung to the back of my neck. The
train’s roar grew louder, drowning out all other sounds, even the
patter of my own heartbeat.

I stepped up, only inches behind him.

He didn’t know I was there until I had my
left hand on his mouth, fingers bruise-tight across his lips, thumb
over his nose, squeezing down. I yanked his head back, to my right
shoulder, and at the same time, thrust my knife low and buried it
hard into his back, punching through his ribs, penetrating his
heart.

He arched and cried out against my hand just
as the train swept into the station, the rumble drowning out
everything. I held his mouth and kept the blade in his body,
feeling it twitch with his heartbeat.

One …

Two …

Three.

The doors whooshed open and the crowd shifted
to one side to allow commuters to clear out of the cars.

I moved with the crowd, stepping away and
letting him fall, trying to pull my knife back. But the S&W
didn’t have a blood groove, and suction held it fast.

By the time he hit concrete, I had blended
into the sea of commuters. I wasn’t worried about fingerprints—the
knife handle had been treated to resist latents—but I didn’t like
being unarmed.

Screams cut through the ambient noise. People
pushed and scattered. I saw a dark-haired man ramming his way
through the crowd, moving quickly from my right. Trying to help?
Afraid of missing the train?

No. Another Persian assailant.

How did all of these assholes get into the
country? Didn’t TSA have a goddamn
no fly
list?

The people departing the train cleared the
doors, and the crowd surged forward. I caught a glimpse of Kirk
ushering Julie into a subway car.

The new arrival noted the same thing. He
veered in the direction of the train.

I angled my trajectory to head him off,
bouncing between harried commuters. A voice said something over the
public address system, impossible to decipher.

One woman elbowed me as I tried to pass.
“Hey, wait your turn.”

I refused to give ground. “You don’t want to
get on this train.”

She gave me a sour look but wisely allowed me
to squeeze past, not that she really had a choice.

I reached the door a split second before the
Persian did and jumped inside, taking two running steps and then
grabbing the pole used for standing commuters. Channeling my inner
stripper, I whirled around, leading with my feet, ankles
together.

As the Iranian stepped onto the train, I
plowed into him with both heels.

He flew backward, flying into the
sharp-elbowed woman and sending both of them sprawling onto the
concrete platform.

I fell to the floor of the train, landing
hard on my hip.

He recovered before I did, rising to his
knees, pulling a pistol out of a shoulder holster, pointing the
barrel square at my chest.

The explosion was deafening, bouncing off
steel and cement.